Clearly, neither the presidency of the government nor the Ministry of Finance seem to want to get rid of the ostracism in the treatment of the draft Finance Law and the state budget for the 2026 financial year.
Normally, according to the provisions of the organic law of the State budget, the Finance Commission of the Assembly of People’s Representatives (ARP) should have received at least three essential documents in order to begin in the best conditions the examination of the draft Finance Law 2026: the draft Finance Law itself, accompanied by a report on the general budget of the State and the draft economic budget. One cannot be conceived without the others. At the same time, these three documents are widely distributed to the public.
This time, none of that. Only the draft Finance Law, stripped of its annexes – which are of paramount importance because they best reflect the government’s action program for the coming financial year – would have been submitted within the constitutional deadlines to the Office of the ARP. This will have to be enough for now. The message would also be aimed at public opinion and the media. Some members of the ARP Finance Commission did not hesitate to openly criticize the presidency of the government and the Ministry of Finance for what they consider to be casualness towards them.
Borrow, but don’t invest
In any case, the document of the draft Finance Law which is circulating provides a little insight into the government’s management of public and budgetary finances. Reading the first ten articles of the project, articles which present the main resources and expenditures of the state budget, the 2026 budgetary management will not fail to impact the already fragile macroeconomic framework of the country. Of course, the State will rely on its own resources first. He will borrow less than last year. However, the volume of borrowing remains considerable, with more than 27 billion dinars (billion dinars) in 2026. Will this boost investment in the country?
In the absence of the report on the state budget, the Tunisian is encouraged to look elsewhere for the precious indication. With institutions that do not have good press among our leaders, for example. Thus, according to data provided by the IMF’s annual report on “The global economic outlook 2026”, the country’s investment rate should fall instead of increasing, going from an already low rate of 12.1% in 2025 to an even lower rate of 11.2% in 2026. But the most worrying lies in the nature of the borrowings that the State intends to make in 2026, after the crowding out effect of the private sector caused by the mass raising of loans on the domestic market in recent years.
The limits reached, if not largely exceeded, of recourse to the internal market, the State is once again eyeing the Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT).
Watch out for the money printing machine
Except that this new request from the State to the BCT is not without risk for the financial stability of the issuing institute and the country in general. Would the monetary authority have the capacity to respond to such a request without breaching its accounting and risk obligations, given the public assets already held by the bank of banks?
At the end of the 3rd quarter of 2025, the BCT showed 11.5 billion dinars in facilities granted to the State. To this should be added approximately 4 billion dinars of assets acquired within the framework of the open market policy on the money market and some other 5 billion dinars of public debts held within the framework of the refinancing of banks on the money market.
At this stage and to date, it is curious to say the least that the guardian of the country’s monetary temple has not reacted, either unofficially or officially. In any case, a disaster scenario cannot be ruled out. Because, in the absence of solid counterparties to this loan, the BCT would have no other means to satisfy the government’s request than to resort to printing money, dragging the country’s economy into a terrible inflationary spiral, the matrix of other infernal spirals such as the deterioration of the exchange rate, the increase in debt charges or even pressure on foreign exchange reserves. This is where a weakening of the financial base of the BCT can lead.
Will the government take this risk? Wouldn’t a tightening of imports and a real boost to exports be preferable to generate borrowing savings?
In the meantime, according to the IMF, the Tunisian economic outlook is far from encouraging. Economic growth will experience a gradual slowdown, reaching 1.4% in 2028 and subsequent years. The objective of a surplus in the primary budget balance from 2026, provided for in the 2024-2026 medium-term budgetary framework published by the Ministry of Finance, appears to be a pipe dream. The primary balance would show a deficit of 1.7% in 2026 and would resume an upward curve to reach 2.7% of GDP in 2030. The same will apply to the overall budgetary balance, whose deficit would start to rise again to display a rate of almost 6% in relation to GDP in 2030, compared to only 4.6% in 2026.
As for the current account balance, its deficit is expected to widen in the coming years, gradually increasing from 3.1% to 4.1% of GDP. Average inflation is also expected to rise again, from 5.9% in 2025 to 8.7% in 2030.
But these are only estimates from the IMF which, after being qualified as« Ommek Sannafa », is renamed here “International Financial Commission”.
